THATCamp Philadelphia 2016: The Future Of THATCamp

A very interesting session I attended was on the future of THATCamp.

  • What is the purpose of a central place for THATCamp?
  • What is the future of the THATCamp branding?
  • THATCamp is a great place to meet people, but can be cliquey.
  • Lots of discussion about PhillyDH and what we get out of THATCamp.
  • What I love about THATCamp is how impressive everyone is...so many people I can learn from. Makes me a better professor.
  • Discussions of workshops/small group work.
  • A THATCamp 101 session is a good idea. We may do it at RCBC.
  • Should there be a list of community member skills?
  • So much of THATCamp work is out of work time, which makes it harder.
  • Many of us have jobs where we do DH, but it is not in job description.
  • Virtual meetings are good ideas.
  • Discussion of means to fund a THATCamp.
  • Should there be a fee for THATCamp?

THATCamp Philadelphia 2016: Intersectional Feminism & The Digital Humanities

Here are my notes from this session. I was really tired by this part of the day, so I mostly sat back and listened to others lead the discussion.

  • Discussion of Wikipediathons and the work of people like Adeline Koh.
  • Wikipedia editing is a good way for students to see how inefficient representation of women and people of color is online.
  • Wikipedia not allowing primary sources can frustrate students.
  • Discussion of archiving early queer websites and a code of conduct for archiving.
  • I also brought up fanzine archiving issues and the ethics surrounding them.

THATCamp Philadelphia: Regional Digital Humanities (Session Proposer/Moderator=John Theibault)

John Theibault moderated this session on creating more regional digital humanities programs.

  • Connection between regionalism and nationalism.

  • How does unconference model help or hinder regionalism?

  • Are there other regional digital humanities programs like PhillyDH?

  • We discussed the Center For Learning & Instruction here at RCBC.

  • What else besides THATCamp can we do at local institutions to aide their projects?

  • What can be done virtually to facilitate meetups with likeminded people?

  • How do we get more non-academics involved in the digital humanities? (I offered some caution here to avoid corporate influence)

Worth Reading Recently

What I Am Up To This Summer

Honestly, I am hoping for a quiet summer. So far, I will not be attending any conferences. I am teaching one section of Composition I and two sections of Composition II online and will be on campus later in the summer to begin the process of building a film studies program here at BCC.

I do have a few digital humanities projects I am working on that will get announced as time goes on. Stay tuned.

ThatCamp Philadelphia 2014: How Can The Digital Humanities Inform The Work Of Scholarly Communication?

Janine Utell had proposed this session, but she was unable to attend so I served as moderator in her place.

  • DHNow http://digitalhumanitiesnow.org/

  • Faculty need to publish in peer reviewed journals for tenure

    • This is weird to say because it implies that open access journals are not peer reviewed. This is propaganda coming from somewhere and I am troubled every time I hear it.

  • Copyright hurdles on campus

  • Do you have a data management plan?

  • Differences between teaching schools and research schools

  • Haystack is helpful source for DH stuff

  • Funding opportunities can be opened up via the digital humanities and open access

  • The R1/University experience generally feels like a different universe from the one I live in that I want nothing to do with.

    • The idea of paying $1,000 to make an article open access is one of the most offensive ideas I have ever encountered.

    • What about class issues and working with various populations if there is a need for cash to access information?

    • That is elitist universities and publishers declaring war on the lower classes access to information.